As I’ve mentioned before, my zest for writing about the past is waning. Yet here we go again.
This morning, in the few minutes I had before beginning my meditation, I noticed a video on my YouTube feed with an arresting title. It had to do with giving up your personal history.
I was amused. I know there is truth in this idea. The past is past — whatever the past is. At the same time, all I am is now, really. That’s all that actually exists. Nothing ever happens except in the present moment. Nothing ever will. Nothing ever has. It’s always been now.
So what exactly am I doing getting all these old tapes digitized so I can listen and view them again? I can’t say. Could this practice somehow be a part of the process of giving up my personal past? Maybe.
This one I actually enjoyed listening to. I’m still working out, or waiting to learn more, what this is all about. At the very least, you might consider this work as historical preservation.
The Chicago Comedy Showcase (now defunct) was a weekend only “club” that featured a lot of improv groups and a handful of solo performers. But no stand ups. I’d just returned to Chicago after four years of college in DC, and a couple years lingering there in the Capitol (plus a 4 month ex-pat adventure in London) and I was uncertain what was to come. I had a dream of joining Second City, getting discovered, and landing a starring role in a major sitcom out in LA.
At a regular pick-up softball game in Lincoln Park between the Lagoon and the Alexander Hamilton statue, I met a guy, Russel Flack, who suggested I give the Chicago Comedy Showcase a look. My plans weren’t exactly taking off as described above. Russ encouraged me to see if I could get a gig playing at CCS, where he frequently MC’d shows. So I did, and I got hired for a weekend to sing my (sometimes) funny songs. Big gratitude to Russ for that.
I was in my mid 20s. So strange to have actual tape from that time. I listen and it is familiar. But it is also as if I’m listening to somebody I don’t know. I mean, who was that guy?
But maybe what’s more interesting is that this place even existed. Patrons brought their own beer and drank it in the pews of what was a church on Sundays. The crowds were very supportive. I’d frequently leave the stage to great applause. It was exhilarating. Kind of stunning too. The experience fed a grandiosity in me. The high was nice, but it certainly didn’t do much to prepare me for the nature of real life and its impersonal hard knocks.
Today, in this moment, I can love the young man I was back then, and feel compassion for him. I actually have given up much of what motivated me back then. The alcohol. The romantic intrigue and seeking the magic of being wrapped in someone’s arms. The magic of love as promised by popular songs. The magic of lust as promised by Playboy and Robert Palmer and MTV music videos. These influences still can clamor for my attention, but they are significantly weaker than they used to be.
So I listen to these moments cautiously. I don’t want to be swallowed up in that vibe again. Shit, I’m 70 years old, for God’s sake! But let me not kid myself. I am still vulnerable if I don’t watch myself.
They were fun times, for sure. I think I’d enjoy writing more about being in my 20s in the late 1970s and early 1980s in Chicago. Riding the 151 to my waiter job at Hillary’s in the Water Tower Place. Being a singing telegram man for Eastern Onion. Performing “I’m Sleazy” at the Chicago Comedy Showcase on March 13, 1982 at Diversey and Seminary, eight months to the day before meeting my first wife while working the lunch shift at Hillary’s one fateful Saturday. But that’s a story for another day.
Today, I need not use my personal history as a drug. I love my life as it is. I don’t regret the past. And I don’t shut the door on it either. Some of you will understand.
Just yesterday I was at the UPS store sending my latest box of old tapes to Southtree, the company that digitizes them and makes these posts possible. A female voice said, “Ben Hollis.” I looked up and saw a mature woman who looked vaguely familiar. She spoke her name and I instantly knew who she was — a fellow waitstaffer from Hillary’s! We embraced and shared a few quick stories. How wonderful. The past and the present coming together in the now.
Calling William Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Yup. It’s all One Continuous Take.
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